Biden on sidelines in gun talks

President Barack Obama’s behind-the-scenes plans for gun control go on but without Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden, the White House’s public face of and private force behind the push for new gun control laws, and his chief of staff, Bruce Reed, are no longer involved in the long-term planning between the White House and major gun violence prevention groups, officials from several organizations tell POLITICO.

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The vice president’s disappearance from an issue he’d been spearheading is a clear signal of how much the focus has shifted from passing gun control legislation in Congress to winning reforms at state capitols and building local networks that can pressure and help elect members of Congress over the long term. The background checks bill Obama championed in the Senate isn’t going to get another vote after falling short in April unless several senators publicly change their mind, aides to senators involved in gun control discussions say.

Officials from the White House Office of Public Engagement, which reports to senior Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, are now carrying the administration’s gun control efforts. OPE officials hold a regular meeting with the major gun control groups known as the Gun Violence Table.

The weekly sessions often include OPE Director Paulette Aniskoff or official Paul Monteiro along with representatives from Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Moms Demand Action, the Center for American Progress, Organizing for Action and Americans for Responsible Solutions.

The groups are coordinating a November lobbying effort and planning events to commemorate the first anniversary of the Newtown, Conn., massacre last December.

Officials from the groups said they hope to follow the example set by gay marriage advocates — turning victories in a handful of local battles into something that resembles a national movement.

The changing roles and activities reflect the current state of the gun control debate. Weekly meetings in Biden’s office early this year were part of the effort to whip Senate votes on the failed effort to expand background checks.

“It’s pretty fair to say that the vice president’s people were more heavily engaged when there was a game on the legislative front,” said Democratic strategist Bob Creamer, who facilitates the Gun Violence Table meetings.

One gun control advocate whose organization participates in the sessions said there is little cause for Biden to send staff to the meetings.

“There wasn’t a formal memo that went around passing any baton, but it’s what made sense,” the advocate said. “What would we say every week in a meeting with Bruce Reed right now? We talk about what we’re doing to keep this issue in the front of the American consciousness.”

It was Biden who met with representatives of law enforcement and religious groups in May and promised a coordinated push all summer to press senators who voted against gun control reforms, but several people who participated in those meetings said they have not heard from the vice president’s office since.

Biden is still involved with the issue, especially in public — an aide pointed to the vice president’s announcement of the two executive actions at the August swearing in of B. Todd Jones, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Biden also visited victims of the shootings at the Washington Navy Yard and phoned the two Colorado state senators who were recalled from office in September largely over their votes for state gun control laws.

Biden also addressed the issue during a September speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, praising New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — the single largest benefactor of the nation’s gun control movement.

“One of the things that President Obama said at the memorial to the victims of the Navy Yard shooting is that change isn’t going to come on this issue from Washington; it’s going to come to Washington,” Biden said in praising Bloomberg. “And when it does, it’ll be because — they used to say in my neighborhood, because Mike has sent it.”

The Biden aide declined to comment about his office’s lack of participation in the Gun Violence Table strategy sessions.